The present invention relates to a watertight electrical contact unit, and more particularly, to a watertight electrical contact unit comprising a contact member integrally molded with a watertight elastic member.
Recently, there has been a growing demand to an endoscope for sterilization and a great deal of effort has been made on the perfect water-tightness. An electric contact unit provided on a watertight endoscope is generally fixed to the endoscope with a bonding agent so as to make it watertight. A camera to be connected to such a watertight endoscope requires the water-tightness. However, it raises a problem of making an electrical contact unit watertight. To solve this, as shown in Japanese Laid Open Utility Model Publication Sho 54/1979-28291, a watertight cover which has been devised for an early electrical contact unit of an endoscope is generally employed.
With such a conventional watertight cover, however, it is required to mount it on an electrical contact unit during a sterilization process, thus it being time-consuming. In addition, with a watertight cover mounted, the inside of the cover will not be sterilized with dirty portions remained.
Furthermore, an electrical contact unit for a camera to be connected to an endoscope having an adhesively fixed electrical contact unit should be movable with respect to the fixed electrical contact unit. To this end, it is conceivable that the water-tightness of a movable portion is generally achieved by employing an O ring or the like. In this case, however, the connection of an electrical contact unit increases in size and water stays on an O ring area, resulting in poor draining, propagation of various germs, adherence of a disinfectant and the like.